Born, like other comic book characters, out of an otherwise trivial but life-changing animal bite, the Rabid Librarian seeks out strange, useless facts, raves about real and perceived injustices, and seeks to meet her greatest challenge of all--her own life.

Unshelved

by Bill Barnes and Gene Ambaum

Tuesday, August 16, 2016

I'm still here

Listening to: Linkin Park, A Thousand Suns

The weekend was okay, but not nearly long enough, I guess. We got to play the game. I started the notes today, but ran into some trouble with Windows Media Player on my laptop, so I'm going to try to use Groove Music, which is recommended for Windows 10, instead. It just stopped playing, then said there was a trouble with the file, then wouldn't start Media Player at all. Fortunately I still had it on the voice recorder should the file have been corrupted, so I have another copy as a backup.

Yesterday I got a phone call asking what I was doing after work. Apparently YKWIA's coffee maker went out before the first cup of coffee of the day, which is a crisis in that household. So after work we went to Meijer, found a simple yet very efficient coffee maker, and I put everything together and brewed the first cup of coffee. Apparently it has a warming tank for water, and makes the coffee from that, so what your pour in only replenishes what is used. So after I got it all together correctly, I had to put water in it and let it warm up, then could brew the coffee. I had to explain not to turn off the tank switch or unplug the coffee pot (he was somewhat dubious of the safety of this. Keep in mind he's from a family whose family house was so old it didn't originally have that new-fangled electricity in the bedrooms, and it was added later, running lines outside the walls. He also once destroyed a computer by unplugging all the cables to the computer before a storm, even though it was on a surge protector/battery backup, and at the time didn't realise that the VGA monitor cables screw in, so he tore the video part of the motherboard apart. He's always turned off the coffee pot AND unplugged it as a matter of course, so it didn't get accidentally left on, which is quite reasonable, really. But this one is different. I made him a couple of cups of coffee, fully expecting a call in the morning, even though I'd explained briefly how it was different than his last one. Well, apparently today he learned not to put the water in first (closing the lid to the brewer makes the water run on through), got cold water a couple of times, and coffee=coloured water at one point, and I have no idea what he was doing wrong, but he eventually got it right before I got off work. I am not allowed to ask what the problem was. He insists he did read the instructions. But the important thing was as a result, he needed coffee from teh store, and creamer, so I went and got some of that, and he splurged for dinner from McDonald's, too, so we ate. Then I dame on home.

I found out that my endocrinologist appointment is apparently Friday at 7:30 am. I thought it was the 29th, though, so YKWIA had made a fairly urgent appointment with one of his doctor's at 9 am that day. I might be able to make it work, but it will mean getting him up at an ungodly hour and taking him first to my appointment, and then his. Thank goodness for that coffee maker, is all I can say. I'll call tomorrow to make sure the appointment time is correct. I actually spoke to one of the nurses today about whether they had a code to put into the OneTOuch Reveal program, and she was unfamiliar with it (as a professional office, they use a different program entirely) and she said she'd ask the rep when they come in a couple of weeks.

I suspect they're going to have me go down a bit on my insulin. I'm on quite a bit, after all, having gone up on the Lantus slowly until my blood sugars got more normal, but now I'm going low in the morning sometimes, unless I eat a mid-morning snack. I went down to 58 this morning right before lunch, so I ate a piece of bread with peanut butter on it. By the time I normally leave for lunch, it was up to 68, which was still low, so I didn't use any rapid-acting insulin for lunch. I'm also tracking my insulin this week to see if the program will notice patterns. I've taken down the morning long-acting insulin by 5 units; I think it needs to go down at least 5 more, but keep the nightly dose the same, as that affects the morning blood sugar levels, which with me are usually higher (today, uncharacteristically, was only 103 this morning). I am also happy that now that things are more normal than they were (I'm averaging about 129 over the last two weeks, with good control), that the eye doctor's office called, and where I was on the waiting list, they've moved my appointment up to Thursday at 4:45 pm. That's a better time for my blood sugar than the morning appointment I had, and now I won't have to wait until September. So I went ahead and told my bosses of the new appointments and they were fine with it. Thursday and Friday are slower, anyway, and I can come in early tomorrow and Thursday to offset any loss of time.

Today at work I was asked if I had any trouble with the revenue cycle people taking over the referrals, which is really who should be doing them, and with an eye towards transition to the new medical centre, they want to take it off my hands, which is fine with me--it's the least favourite task of my job, to be honest, particularly calling insurance companies to see what a referral entails for their company. I still have the charges to put in and the reconciliation of charges to do. Probably at some point they'll take over the monthly audit; I think that's really supposed to in that area, it's just I was the one who started doing them when they were instituted, so I have been. But since neither my librarian job nor the data entry position are going to the new building, they're having to examine what to do to carry on some of my tasks. The facility charges won't be an issue--that's something only a hospital can charge, and they'll be an ambulatory care centre. I don't know about the cast and procedure charges I put in--they may have to be done by somebody else. And the reconciliation of charges will probably be taken over by surgery, as it is their charges.

I also spoke to the administrator today about items in the library and have a better idea of where we need to go with breaking up the library. I'll take the ideas to the library committee meeting next month. I also have a better idea of the algorithm for disposing of hospital property and the level of services available in the new building (the latter, may be a real issue for them, as they won't be able to get free interlibrary loans unless they come up with some sort of agreement with the folks at the university). I also have an editor interested in a short column on closing a library, so I'm going to write up something on it before January and maybe get it published, too. The last two books of my order came in today, so I'll catalogue them tomorrow, and that will be it. We may be able to break the newer books into appropriate offices (i.e., Green's Hand Surgery to the doctor who specialises in that, the gait analysis books to the motion laboratory, the family resource centre books to care management, etc.) The journals are actually the big issue. I really don't want to have to recycle a lot at the end of everything. I have orthopaedic journals, some of which have very good runs (I have the Journal of Bone and Joint SUrgery back to the early 20th century, as in during World War I, for example. There's also (randomly) an 1832 book on fractures. Really. And I found out that they did find a place for some historical proceedings that had been donated by a former board director, so that's great.

I'm trying to do what I can to lessen the blow of losing the library as much as I can. Considering that when it closes, it will have been in existence for 30 years and was relied upon for information needs, articles, and a host of other things, it will be sad to see it go. And of course, I go with it. :( But I'm trying to keep a stiff upper lip on that front, and in the meantime I keep looking for a position. I check my sources every day or so.

Okay, I guess I should wrap this up. Sorry I didn't blog for a couple of days. as life was rather busy. Hope you have a good week.